Learning a new language on my own with PONS

About two months ago I started to learn French on my own.

Already a year ago out of curiosity I listened to the Michel Thomas' audio course for French and found this method interesting but not as efficient as what I am doing right now. Michel Tomas' method requires you to just relax and listen. I found the approach interesting, but more from the point of participating in a kind of a linguistic experiment that isn't very practical. I found the method very slow as well. It's sort of an imitation of how a child would learn its mother tongue, just by absorbing.

But two months ago I bought two books for French learning by PONS. The first one is an intensive course with a CD and transcripts ( A1-A2) and the second one is called "Grammar practice through translation method". Its concept is that on one page you have sentences in German that you need to translate into French, and on the opposite page you can find the French translations. The book is organized into different grammatical themes (modals, question words, different verbs, imperative, functional phrases etc.) and the sentences are connected thematically, there is an inkling of a story behind them, which I find very useful. It wouldn't be as good if you just had random sentences without any contextual connection.

At first I was suspicious about this concept because translation method isn't used in language schools anymore. Just like teaching grammar in general it is considered archaic and is generally avoided in favor of a more communicative method based on speaking, role-playing and complete absence of the L1 (mother tongue).

But surprisingly I find this method very practical, fun and quick for myself. It requires you to write so there is an additional benefit of practicing your writing. You can do it on the train, at work or at home. It is a great supplement to the Intensive Course book, which has a CD and transcript to practice your reading and listening.